U.S. committed to strengthening ties with India

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, NOV. 6. The Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Ms. Christina Rocca, today said though the immediate focus was on counter-terrorism pertaining to Afghanistan all issues were out there in the realm of Indo-U.S. relations which continued to move forward on a strong and broad-based agenda.

Speaking to the South Asia journalists ahead of the visits of the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, to Washington and the President of Pakistan, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to New York, Ms. Rocca emphasised that priorities with respect to India had not changed after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Mr. Vajpayee is scheduled to arrive in Washington on Wednesday late afternoon (local time) and would meet the U.S. President, Mr. George W. Bush, at the White House on Friday morning, followed by a working lunch. The Presidents of Pakistan and the U.S. will be meeting on Saturday evening in New York, followed by a dinner.

``Before September 11, we were all moving forward in order to build a very strong and broad relationship with India. There has been no change in that policy....all these issues are still out there that we want to talk about across the board. Obviously, today we have an immediate imperative which is the counter- terrorism issue,'' the senior Bush administration official said.

During the course of the meeting at the State Department, Ms. Rocca noted that the sanctions against India had just been removed and that the full-fledged momentum in the bilateral relations can be expected to get off the ground.

Ms. Rocca said no specific agreements were expected to be signed during the visit of Mr. Vajpayee and that the emphasis would be on to look for ways to continue to strengthen the ties between the two countries.

Asked if the Bush administration was ``pushing'' for a meeting between Mr. Vajpayee and Gen. Musharraf, Ms. Rocca said she was not aware of any planned meeting between the two leaders, but reiterated Washington's support for a high-level and sustained dialogue between India and Pakistan. The U.S. position on Kashmir had not changed, she said.

Ms. Rocca denied that there was any scepticism on the part of the Republican administration vis-a-vis Gen. Musharraf's commitment to the campaign against terrorism. Asked if Pakistan's support to this coalition had been wholehearted, the senior official responded, ``Absolutely''.

She brushed aside news reports of administration's ``concerns'' over Pakistan's nuclear facilities. The U.S was confident that Gen. Musharraf had control over the Army, Ms. Rocca said. She anticipated an important role for the UN.

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